[dy]

The advice in this article is dangerous for finding success and profit as an entrepreneur if your only knowledge relates to the needs of a developer. Developers are an infamously hard bunch of people to sell products to; as developers, I'm sure we've had all these thoughts:

- this is cool, but I could build something better (how many 37signal open source clones are there)

- this is cool, but way too expensive (Github complaints)

- this is cool, but let me use Google AdWords to get free upgrades (DropBox)

- this writing is great, but I'm blocking all the ads on the page (daringfireball)

Another problem is that when developers decide to do their own startup, the only domain they really understand is software development.

There are millions of people who have problems who can't code - building another bug tracker, productivity tool, email management app, GTD widget might be fun, but the economy of real "business" software that's out there is far larger and more lucrative.

[BadassFractal]

Also you're missing out on opportunities that are outside of your field of expertise.

Just the other day I was watching Stanford's talk by David Friedberg about how he built the Climate Corporation which, in my words, provides bad weather insurance for businesses and farmers. The guy doesn't own a farm or a business that's impacted by weather, he's not a user of his own product, but he still went ahead and understood the intricacies of that industry and was highly successful.

Being your own product's user is fantastic, I think it really helps, however you'll be leaving out a lot of good ideas on the table.

[revorad]

Your argument rests on the weird assumption that the only thing developers do is write code.

Maybe I'm unique but my needs also include stuff like food, shopping, talking to friends, driving, running, clothes, and more.

Another problem is that when developers decide to do their own startup, the only domain they really understand is software development.

I don't care about the "domain". I've got a problem and I'm fixing it. I happen to be a developer, so I can use technology to fix it.

As the OP said, you're overthinking it.

[mgkimsal]

"Maybe I'm unique but my needs also include stuff like food, shopping, talking to friends, driving, running, clothes, and more."

You probably don't spend 8-10 hours per day eating/preparing food, nor driving, nor running etc. You may engage in those things, but you're not an expert in those domains.

The OP point was that there's many lucrative domains out there that don't have optimal solutions to their problems yet, but most people who do software all day only really understand the ins and outs of the software dev industry as opposed to, say, the funeral business and their unique needs. Yes, you probably have been to funerals, and even said "wow, i've got a need/want for better funerals", but really digging deep in to an industry takes a lot of time and effort.

[revorad]

I bet Drew Houston wasn't spending 8-10 hours a day sharing files, neither was Zuck looking up student profiles all day long.

I don't agree with the notion that you have to understand the ins and outs of something to start working on it. See http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html

Do you think all of Basecamp's customers are software companies because that's the only domain 37s knows deeply about?

Funeral directors use Facebook too.

I wouldn't think "wow, i've got a need/want for better funerals". I would probably notice some specific problem and think how to solve it. If software can help, that's great, otherwise I'm not starting an undertaking business any time soon.

[mgkimsal]

You end up needing to be willing to commit to learning a hell of a lot about an industry, and that's time you won't be developing. The tech, in most cases, is secondary to understanding the business needs and workflow of an industry. One of the most successful guys I know as a small business software guy took a year to take mortuary classes and work in the funeral industry to learn their needs before developing services for them.

[BadassFractal]

I agree with this. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if you start a construction company, a funeral service or flower delivery. You might not ever write a line of code and still have a perfectly profitable fast growing business.

The prob is that we're all tech geeks here and all we want to do is turn our fetish for coding into the next big thing, so we always try to think in terms of software solutions.

[AznHisoka]

Facebook is an outlier. About DropBox, I'm sure Drew Houston spent every living hour digging into the intricacies of other solutions, the risks, what people wanted, etc when he decided he wanted to make DropBox.

You can pick up the domain knowledge while working on your product or before working on it, but you still have to get it somehow.

[jon2512chua]

Another problem is that when developers decide to do their own startup, the only domain they really understand is software development.

I don't believe this to be true - most, if not all, developers have hobbies and interests. For example, I'm into photography, so I would much rather build a photography software that I would enjoy using rather than something to solve a carpenter's problem (just an example) that I don't really care about.

For me at least I find that the benefits for this is two-fold: one, like the author said, so that I can be my own critic as I possess the domain knowledge, and secondly, I'll be much more passionate about working on something that I care deeply about.

[tcarnell]

Exactly. Do something, lauch something, enjoy yourself, but dont call this a 'business' or yourself an 'entrepreneur'.

[shmerl]

I'm somewhat curious what does all this have to do with the word "hacker" which denotes kind of approach to life really, in a way of "hacking" it.